The Beauty in Breaking
by AStormIsBrewing
Summary: She was in an enemy camp . . . trying to ease the passing of enemy soldiers. Maybe, in some deep corner of her heart, she hoped to save one or two. But late at night, in this dismal place, it was very hard to hope.


I was having a thought, and I thought that I thought that I should do something with my insomnia besides complain about it. So I give you what I happened to think was a good idea at three in the morning. I think I will agree withmyself that it is a good idea tomorrow. I will wish I was working on it instead of my AP summer reading some time in the near future.

Gasp! I can read my own mind.

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_**Something**_

By AStormIsBrewing

There was a sickeningly sweet smell on the wind. The moans and agonized screams of the dying rent the ears; the stench of blood, sweat, and all other bodily fluids assaulted the nostrils. But this was not some open pasture that war had claimed; this was a very different type of battlefield.

It was a hospital, or as near as could be found in the high mountains of Bern. It was a long, open tent with many bedrolls laid out in rows along the sides. There were many other, similar ones nearby.

Green cloak and all other familiar objects left behind in favor of a bloody, starched smock, the Tactician of Eliwood's Army went about the work of a healer as best she could in this tent, the worst of them all. Here, arrayed before her in all its bitterness, was the result of her great success.

This was the tent where the fatally wounded would lay dying, sometimes for hours, before the army was forced to move on. No one wasted a heal staff here, not for them. Not in the interest of speed. The leaders would order the final mercy given, and then Amaya would see the corpses.

She moved to a bedroll beside a wounded soldier, knowing the little she could do. A cool cloth to the forehead for a few minutes, waiting for the last ragged breath, and then moving on to the next. She found she had an eerie ability to predict the deaths she had played her part in causing, and she did what she could to utilize it.

She knew she should have been resting. They had scored a major victory against Nergal, and they had to press him hard, keep him running, keep him from gathering any more soldiers. Wear out his armies. Cut them off from the main force, and make them easier to destroy.

She was a tactician. This knowledge should not have been new to her; it should not have been goring her insides as it was. The amount of suffering and carnage and bloodshed Nergal would cause if he succeeded was immense; more than this tiny patch of hell. Still, Amaya hated Nergal all the more for forcing her to this . . . this _mindlessness._

She was in an enemy camp . . . trying to ease the passing of enemy soldiers. Maybe, in some deep corner of her heart, she hoped to save one or two. But late at night, in this dismal place, it was very hard to hope.

It was not as if the young tactician _could_ sleep anyways. There was so much assaulting her mind so fast she would lie awake for hours, tormented by her darker thoughts.

Moving, doing something, anything, helped more than she had dared hope. Sneaking past the sentries _she_ had placed on watch made her giddy. Those few hours of sleep she got on the hard ground, or in the saddle afterwards, were the most restful hours of her life.

Maybe it was irresponsible, but she was past the point of caring. Being the tactician, and constantly left on the sidelines, she felt as if she wasn't doing anything worthwhile. This gave her some purpose, twisted as it was, beyond constantly watching her friends put themselves in danger.

Amaya gave herself a few hours, as always, and then hurried back to where she had left her cloak, only to find it gone. "Matthew . . ." she whimpered, truly afraid of what would happen next. She did not want to lose everything for her strange penance.

There was barely a sound as the thief dropped out of the tree beside her. Amaya was hugging herself and staring fixedly at the dirt.

The thief was silent for a moment, his normally cheery expression blank. "You baffle me," he said simply. Amaya didn't respond. "You know I will have to tell them, right?"

Amaya nodded miserably. "I understand," she whispered, sinking against a tree. Her stomach was roiling.

The thief sighed, any anger gone, and with it, any professionalism. He dropped to the ground beside her. "You know, little sister . . ." — it was the name he had used for her ever since Araphen — "technically, you're the supreme commander of the army. Could you possibly give me a reason for sneaking about at night like this?"

"I could give you many, all of them fair, but none true. I didn't think of half of them until a moment ago." She smiled a crooked smile. "I could have been scouting. No one knows my face. I could have been learning the layout of the camp for a surprise attack, I could have been finding out their remaining strength, I could have been assassinating one of the leaders . . ."

"But those thoughts never occurred to you."

Amaya shook her head angrily. "I'm just a kid! Lyn and Eliwood and Hector tell me to win battles, so I do, but . . . I . . . I really think I would go crazy. I don't want to think about the best ways of killing someone all the time . . . ." She trailed off, letting her mind wander to something else. "This . . . it doesn't feel like one of the great sagas I used to hear . . . ."

Matthew nodded. "It's gotten to be a bit more than an inheritance dispute, hasn't it?" He sighed. "But it still doesn't explain what you were doing."

Amaya glared, and stood up. "So you might as well just go and wake everyone up now. Tell them I was helping enemy combatants and I'm beginning to go crazy."

"They would not hold it against you." Amaya glanced back at him, suspicious. "All of us are beginning to feel it. We've been working so hard, for so long, we want to see some reward for all the sacrifices . . . ." With the far away eyes, Amaya knew who he was thinking of. "The most important thing you can do is continue your work, and end it as quickly as possible. You have Nergal on the run. There is no reason for you too be so . . . dispirited. You're the heart of our merry little band. If you are lost, then so are the rest of us."

"Oh, that makes me feel so much better," Amaya said, becoming panicked.

Matthew laughed. He _laughed_. "Don't . . . don't do that! We depend on you, but you still have the rest of us to lean on! Please . . . we're here to help _you_, when you need help. So . . . talk to Lady Lyndis tomorrow about what you have been doing. She'll understand, if anyone will. Otherwise . . . ."

"You'll tell Hector, and that won't be as pretty," Amaya finished flatly.

Matthew laughed again, standing up and walking off into the dark toward the camp. "You always were bright."

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So? You like? Have I read my mind correctly? Please Review! 

Oh, and I just noticed, Documents have shelf lives. Coolio.


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